Man, I am really tired of this no hockey thing August has going on, know what I mean? It just sucks. Could there be any less to do? Could I be any more bored? Hmm … well, probably, yes. But still, things would seem much less lame if there were a Sens game on TV tonight.

When I’m bored and there’s no hockey in sight, I read lots of different hockey blogs. A few of them have come up with some good ways to make this nightmarish hockeyless month pass more quickly. Sherry at Scarlett Ice, who like me is feeling the pain of no hockey, has started working on a 100 things about me meme, which makes for very interesting reading. I had no idea Sherry was so multi-talented! Meanwhile, Puck Daddy has announced the winners of the “Gary Bettman: Portraits in Heroism” contest. If you have some time to kill (and who doesn’t?), I strongly suggest checking out the Flickr gallery of all 231 entries, which not only is hilarious, but also serves as a great demonstration of just how overdone the whole Dark Knight “Why So Serious?” thing has become.

Puck Daddy has also got a series going called “5 Ways I’d Change the NHL,” in which they ask various people to describe, you guessed it, five changes they’d make to the NHL. My personal favourite suggestion comes from Will Leitch:

1. Hockey players should no longer be allowed to wear helmets. As all casual observers of the sport know, hockey players are impervious to pain. But their faces are still able to be damaged; teeth destroyed, eyes knocked out of their socket, noses flattened. And yet they will keep coming. This will help us train our master class of human to take on the Terminators during the upcoming cyborg apocalypse.

Yes! Anything that will give humanity a chance to survive the inevitable conflict with artificially intelligent beings (which all the science fiction movies and TV shows I watch assure me is coming any day now) gets my vote.

Inspired partly by Puck Daddy, I’ve come up with my own take on this concept. It happens to be something I’ve spent a bit of time thinking about. You see, I am a daydreamer, and when I’ve finished reading hockey blogs and there’s still no hockey in sight, that is when I start to drift off into my own imaginary land. When I daydream, I sometimes create elaborate scenarios that place myself at the centre of the universe in some way. Elaborate scenarios such as …

If I Ran the NHL

Picture a world where Gary Bettman is no longer NHL commissioner and the board of governors has, for some reason, decided that I, Meaghan, humble blogger and huge hockey fan, shall be appointed Supreme Ruler over the league. All my decisions will become law without any debate. I have total control and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Luckily, I’m a pretty benevolent dictator on the whole, even if I do show a disgusting amount of bias towards a certain team, and it’s generally agreed that my changes make the league much better. I am also invulnerable, which means Anton Volchenkov and I will likely be humanity’s last hope when the machines attack. (He’ll be like a Russian John Connor, and I’ll be like Neo from The Matrix.) It also means that even if there were disgruntled owners and GMs they couldn’t assassinate me, so I really am Supreme Ruler for Life. The National Hockey League changes its name to Meaghan’s Hockey League and I am given my choice of season ticket seats in every league arena. It’s awesome. (Bettman is now working as the home team’s penalty box door opening guy in Anaheim.)

“How did this come to pass?” you might ask. That is a story for another time. For now, here is the first major change I would make in taking the shoddy, somewhat run-down NHL, polishing it up, and turning it into the wonderful, wildly successful, crowd-pleasing MHL.

First Order of Business: Contraction and Re-realignment

I don’t think anyone could argue that the NHL’s current divisional and conference setup makes any sense. The Northwest division covers a vast geographic area and has teams in three different timezones. Detroit and Columbus are the only two Eastern timezone teams stuck in the Western Conference, where they play all their roadgames — except the ones against each other — in timezones different than their own. Dallas, despite being nowhere near the west coast, finds itself in the Pacific Division, while Vancouver, which is in fact right on the west coast, is not in the Pacific Division. It is bizarre.

The problem is the lack of teams in the western US. 21 of the NHL’s 30 teams are east of Dallas. One solution might be to expand into more western markets, but the MHL’s most glorious leader feels that the league already has too many teams, some of which are not very good, and some of which always seem to play in half-empty arenas.

With these considerations in mind, the MHL will make the following changes to its roster of teams:

• Six teams from the former National Hockey League will be shut down, effective immediately. These six teams are the Atlanta Thrashers, Carolina Hurricanes, Florida Panthers, Nashville Predators, New York Islanders, and Tampa Bay Lightning. The remaining teams will have the option of taking on players from these teams at their current salaries in the MHL’s Contraction Draft (format to be announced). Southeast Division teams, it’s nothing personal. You simply don’t fit in with my vision. Nashville, we all know you weren’t going to last anyway. New York, in your case, it is personal. You annoy me, and I see no point to your continued existence.
• The Phoenix Coyotes will return to the city of Winnipeg and resume playing as the Jets. All Phoenix players and personnel will move with the team. Pack your bags and get ready for that prairie winter, boys!

The remaining 24 teams will be divided, as in the old NHL, into a Western Conference and an Eastern Conference, each of which has three divisions. The Western Conference divisions have been arranged in an attempt to minimize the amount of time teams spend travelling to different timezones:

Pacific Division
Anaheim Ducks
Los Angeles Kings
San Jose Sharks
Vancouver Canucks

Mountain Division
Calgary Flames
Colorado Avalanche
Edmonton Oilers
Winnipeg Jets (I know, there are no mountains in Winnipeg. But it’s the best I could do.)

Central Division
Chicago Blackhawks
Dallas Stars
Minnesota Wild
St. Louis Blues

The Eastern Conference divisions are based mostly on geography:

Northeast Division
Buffalo Sabres
Montreal Canadiens
Ottawa Senators
Toronto Maple Leafs

Atlantic Division
Boston Bruins
New Jersey Devils
New York Rangers
Washington Capitals

Midwest Division
Columbus Blue Jackets
Detroit Red Wings
Philadelphia Flyers
Pittsburgh Penguins

I expect to receive an effusive thank you letter and possibly a large gift of some kind from the Red Wings’ and Blue Jackets’ owners later today.

MHL teams will play a 74 game schedule. Each team will meet each other team in its division 3 times at home and 3 times on the road (18 games). Each team will also play each team from the other divisions in its conference twice at home and twice on the road (32 games). Finally, every team will play each team in the other conference twice a season, once each at home and on the road (24 games).

At the conclusion of the 74 game regular season, the top eight teams in each conference will advance to the playoffs, which will use the same format as the NHL playoffs: four rounds of best-of-seven series. Division winners are guaranteed to make the playoffs as they were in the NHL; however, they will not automatically be ranked 1-2-3 in the conference. Instead, the division winners and the other top five point-getting teams will be ranked 1-8 according to their point totals.*

Wow. I feel better already just looking at the new lineup! Big changes, I know, but there are so many benefits to this new setup. No more Southleast jokes. More in-timezone road games for Western teams should mean higher TV ratings, which might translate to more media attention and increased fan support for teams like Chicago and Columbus. Having Sidney Crosby in town three times a season can also only help the Blue Jackets’ attendance numbers. The two most boring teams in the league are now hidden away in the same division, which, okay, is painful for Rangers and Caps fans, but really good for the rest of us. There will be a lot of pressure on Alex Ovechkin to offset the dull, but I think he can handle it. Best of all, Winnipeg has its team back and we can all stop worrying about that Jets megafan friend we have who’s been verging on suicidal since 1996. Newly suicidal obsessive Coyotes fans, we haven’t forgotten you! An employee of the Anaheim Ducks will personally pay to relocate you all to Winnipeg with the team if you so choose. That’s what things are like in the MHL. We care about hockey fans.**

*The lone exception to this rule is the Ottawa Senators who, should they win the Northeast Division, will have the option of choosing their own position within the top 4 in order to secure the most favourable first round opponent (or mess with another top 4 team).

**Except Thrashers, Canes, Panthers, Preds, Lightning, and Isles fans. Sorry.